New Zealander of the Year nominations

Nominations for New Zealander of the Year were used as a political campaign to promote Metiria Turei, have become dominated by the number of nominations for an Australian politician who recently denounced his New Zealand citizenship, Barnaby Joyce.

Nominations for New Zealander of the Year for 2018 close on 18 September (well short of the end of the year). The top 10 will be announced at the end of the year (30/12), the top 3 will be announced on 24 January 2018. The website doesn’t say under ‘Key Dates’ when the winners will be announced – it will be at a gala in Auckland on 21 February 2018.

Why are they always announced in Auckland? There are some other parts of the country too.

2018 New Zealander of the Year Awards Update

The New Zealander of the Year Awards office is pleased to provide the following nominations update for the 2018 New Zealander of the Year Awards.

• 371 nominations have been received for 2018 New Zealander of the Year.

• Support for former co-leader of the Green Party Metiria Turei has continued to grow since her resignation and she has received the most nominations.

• Australian Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce has received the second most. At the conclusion of the nominations period the Awards office will assess Mr Joyce’s eligibility based on his citizenship and other criteria.

After nominations close on 18 September 2017, a judging panel – comprising representatives of awards patrons, presenters, sponsors, community leaders and independent experts – will evaluate the nominations. The shortlist of 10 candidates to be considered for the New Zealander of the Year Award will be announced in December.

Comment from New Zealander of the Year Awards manager, Glyn Taylor:

“With three weeks to go, the nominations for 2018 New Zealander of the Year come from all fields of achievement and community service. It’s also not unusual for people of the moment to attract significant support during the public nominations period.

“We’re looking forward to seeing the expected upswing in nominations in these final weeks. The independent judging panel will then consider each nomination on how a particular individual has contributed to making New Zealand a better place to live”.

Barnaby Joyce’s denouncement of he New Zealand should rule him out, and he has hardly “contributed to making New Zealand a better place to live”.

Turei’s nominations are premature at least. Some may see her putting the Green Party at risk of dropping out of Parliament a contribution, but the reality is that while she risked her career to speak up for poor people and against poverty it’s very arguable about how much she has actually achieved.

By the end of the year she may be virtually forgotten. Remember Russel Norman? Kevin Hague? One an ex Green leader too, the other an ex Green MP, and arguably both have done as much or more for New Zealand than Turei, but they don’t have political point scoring campaigners behind them.

If the Greens do poorly in next month’s election then even the political faction pushing her barrow may fizzle somewhat.

If a political campaign succeeded in making Turei New Zealander of the year it would be as lame as a political knighthood or damehood.

Turei may yet prove her worth as an advocate for the poor in the future, but she has gone backwards rather than forwards this year, and so has what could actually have been able to make a real difference, the Green Party.

We should be looking more at others on the list who have been overshadowed by politics and farce:

• Other nominated New Zealanders for 2018 Kiwibank New Zealander of the Year include:

21 Comments

Tipene

Brown

Yep. Lead a cause, get on TV or cover of Woman’s day and you get noticed with people grabbing a memory to promote their present name in the sun. Dalton, hard worker though he appears to be, was just having a good time doing what he loved while pocketing dosh in nice parts of the world. If we have to have heroes we at least need to remember what they look like. The baubles of men are dangerous indeed.

Tipene

I’ve made it clear a number of times that derogatory name calling is not welcome here. What is funny to some can be offensive to others, and the experience has been if I allow some name calling it escalates and gets very ugly.

Pete Kane

Gezza

I just can’t understand it Pete. 😳 207 email nominations for myself I sent in this year. I’ve used up all the alias extra free extra account email names & addresses allowed in every email service I could find on the web. Even Kim Jong Un II. 😕 Bloody nightmare thinking up birthdates, post codes & passwords, as you can probably imagine! Got me beat. Maybe I have to bribe someone?